1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring module.
2. Description of the Related Art
A battery module mounted, for example, in a vehicle such as an electric vehicle or a hybrid vehicle is generally configured such that a multitude of unit cells are connected in series via busbars.
As an example of such a battery module, a battery module is known which is assembled by mounting a wiring module with busbars and a wire group on a unit cell group formed by arranging a plurality of unit cells (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-8955).
The wiring module described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-8955 includes a plurality of busbars held at predetermined positions of a resin protector and a plurality of wires (wire group) accommodated in wire arrangement grooves provided in the resin protector.
A wiring module has a role of connecting a plurality of unit cells and supplying power to another external device or the like and, in many cases, includes an external connection terminal connected to the other device or the like to supply power. Since there is a risk of an electric shock if this external connection terminal is directly contacted, the wiring module needs to be provided with a cover member for covering the external connection terminal to keep insulation.
Such a cover member needs to be removed (to expose the external connection terminal) every time the external connection terminal and the other device are connected and disconnected, it is preferably integrally provided to the wiring module in view of operability. As an example of such a configuration, it is thought to unite a cover member for covering an external connection terminal and a busbar cover for covering busbars via a hinge portion and make the cover member openably and closably rotatable with respect to the busbar cover.
However, depending on the shape of a product, the hinge portion enabling the cover member to be openably and closably rotatable in directions to provide good operability cannot be provided due to molding restrictions in some cases.
Accordingly, it is thought to provide the cover member with a second hinge portion perpendicular to the hinge portion (hereinafter, referred to as a first hinge portion) linking the busbar cover and the cover member for covering the external connection terminal and rotate the cover member in two stages by the first and second hinge portions, thereby combining good opening and closing directions and moldability.
However, in the case of performing the rotation in two stages in this way, a fixing operation of stably holding the cover member at a predetermined position after the rotation by the first hinge portion is necessary to reliably set opening and closing rotation directions by the second hinge portion at arbitrary directions. This causes problems of complicating a structure and increasing man-hours.
The present invention was completed based on the above situation.